Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley’s significance

2 Comments / Fruits of the Enlightenment, Science /

I did not know this about Priestley’s significance to two of the great American founding fathers: “In the 165 letters that passed between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the name Benjamin Franklin is mentioned five times, George Washington three times, Alexander Hamilton twice — and Joseph Priestley, a foreign immigrant, is cited no fewer than […]

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Coffee and the Enlightenment

6 Comments / Fruits of the Enlightenment, History /

I’m reading Steven Johnson’s The Invention of Air, which is primarily about the Joseph Priestley, the great chemist and adviser to the American founding fathers. Along the way, Johnson quotes historian Tom Standage: “The impact of the introduction of coffee into Europe during the seventeenth century was particularly noticeable since the most common beverages of

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